Weekend Festivities and More

This past weekend Elliot took his first trip...and not to Children's in Denver, but to Steamboat Springs, to participate in the Snowshoe HydroWALK and to meet the Updike Uncle and Aunts.  Steamboat was great.  We were able to stay in a ski house with the entire family and relive some old family times (yes, we played the game of Life and it may have lasted 3 hours, and Chris and Marissa played a rip roaring game of Jenga...).  Friday night Byron and I set off to dinner with Elliot to meet up with 4 other families that had kiddos with Hydrocephalus.  Three of the kiddos were between the ages of 5-7 and then an 18 year old girl.  It was great to see other kids with Hydrocephalus and to witness in person how amazing they all are doing.  All their parents were wonderful as well.  Byron and I were given some great advice and comforting words.  The 18 year old girl, Jordan, has had 19 brain surgeries in her short 18 years and through all of that she is now in college at Denver University on a full ride.  Its just reassuring for Byron and I to meet all these families and hear their stories.  It makes our adventure with Elliot feel a little more "normal", at least "normal" as far as babies with Hydrocephalus go.

Saturday morning was the Snowshoe HydroWALK.  100 people showed up for the event and around 40,000 dollars were raised for research.  A big thank you to all of our friends and family who donated!  Although it was only a 3K Snowshoe, it kicked my BUTT!  I think I now understand why they say to take it easy for 6 weeks after a C-Section, but I'm stubborn, so I still had to learn the hard way. It was a lot of fun and I'm so proud that all my siblings came to the event to support their brand new nephew, its means the world to us.  The rest of our trip in Steamboat was full of relaxing and just enjoying our time together.   

Elliot got to spend some good quality time with his Aunts and Uncle and they even got to observe how our child likes to pee and now poo on us.  They all took off this morning, except for Blair, she is stuck with us, but a big thank you to all of them for making the trip out to Colorado!

This morning, Byron and I, the horrible parents that we are had Elliot circumsized (sorry if its too much information, but this is our life, haha).  We couldn't have this done at birth due to the brain surgery and then it was scheduled 2 weeks ago and we ended up at Childrens' again, so third time is a charm...right?  Well, Elliot would totally disagree!  He did great during the procedure...so I heard, I totally chickened out and stayed in the waiting room while Byron ventured back with Elliot.  Byron said that Elliot mainly screamed when they strapped his little legs down and not too much during the actually "chop-chop".   What a trooper again!  Now the little man is making us pay for it and we are letting him.  If something like that ever happened to me I would want to be held all day and soothed as well.  Thank god, Byron is on Spring Break this week and is home.

The rest of our week should be relaxing, as relaxing as it can be with a baby.  Here are some photos from our weekend, enjoy!  Oh yea, baby boy is up to 10lbs. 5oz, right on target.

Auntie Kendall

Loving being able to look at Daddy in the Moby wrap

Getting ready for the WALK

All kids with Hydrocephalus wore these blue bandannas, Elliot looks "gangsta"

Family photo

Truckin' along

Group shot

All the kiddos with Hydrocephalus

Auntie Blair

Uncle Chris

A day we hope Elliot never remembers, haha